Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

One student said: "My name is Conor. I am a first-year nursing student. In the last week I have had to wash, feed, lift and dress Covid-positive patients unsupervised." Another, Michelle, said:

I finished my final six weeks' unpaid placement of fourth year. I was doing between 70 to 80 hours per week for six weeks, sometimes finishing placement at 8.00 p.m. and going directly into a 12-hour night duty sleepover shift, most of the time not sleeping as I had to get up and assist people with their needs.

I could go on; I have dozens of these testimonies. The Taoiseach does not need to talk to the HSE. I have invited him - and I invite him again - any day this week or in the next week to meet with the hundreds of student nurses who will give him the accounts directly of how it is systematic. It is not an isolated instance; it is systematic.

We were in favour of FEMPI restoration for nurses, teachers and ordinary low- and middle-income front-line workers who were robbed as a result of austerity cuts. We always said that nobody - politicians, top civil servants - should be getting pensions or pay from the public purse of over €100,000.

The Taoiseach should not spin that nonsense to deflect from the shocking unwillingness to pay student nurses and midwives and should instead keep to the commitment to giving them the healthcare assistant rate that the Government took off them but that they were given earlier this year.

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